This is really the only reason I have a MacOS system around. The M4 Air feels like what I imagined a laptop could be 15 years ago. No fans to block, can grab it and carry it around almost like a tablet, works great as a thin client into a more powerful system over Moonlight, it's light enough that I don't even think about carrying it around in my backpack even when I'm also carrying my work laptop, and it was cheap enough that if anything happens to it I won't be too concerned.

Compared to the last XPS I had, it's substantially better for my use case, since I'll generally be remoting into systems anyway.

Of course it works and is beautiful hardware and all that.

But don't fool yourself. You're subverted to Apple's rules the same as Microsoft users are to Windows.

I prefer to fight a little bit on an update on a unix system on something that is not working 100% to give up choices. When you use Windows, MacOS, Android you do not have choices. Choices are dictated from above, like it or not.

As for me every time I have to interact with something that is not BSD or Linux I suffer miserably.

> Also the OS mostly “just works”

Apparently it doesn't judging by the tons of articles published after every macOS update.

> just last week my Linux laptop disabled NVIDIA GPU (and almost bricked itself?? Not sure, had to fix apt) during automated updates

And I am on a run of 11 years of update (since Fedora 25 or 26) without a single issue. Anecdotal evidences are just that. Anecdotal. Some people will have issues, others won't. Putting yourself in a situation where you have less risk of having issues like not using hardware from a company whose drivers are not maintained in the mainline kernel source tree goes a long way.

> “just works”

if you use distros which ship the latest _stable_ release of software

and have enough Linux know how to fix the occasional hick up

but it can sometimes "just work" for a long time without any issues, something I haven't exactly had with either Windows or Mac

like my current gaming setup from a year ago(roughly) was setup once, I had to fiddle some minor tweaks during setup and since then it "just works tm". No issues, not know how needed, nothing. (At least for the Games I play.) But also not Nvidea which has in recent years increasingly more QA issues across _all_ OSes and _all_ hardware including their supper expensive AI cards... But that is more a Nvidea then a Linux Problem, by now, was different in the past.

I have to agree, unfortunately. Macbooks have their issues, and give me violent tendencies like any piece of hardware every now and then, but when it comes to UX and reliability, they are far, far ahead of anything I tried, and I tried a lot of hardware.

Not to mention that once you're in this ecosystem, it's usually pretty reliable.

It seems that no other device makers are seeing the value in Apple's many-devices-acting-as-one approach. It makes for some serious vendor lock.

Mac build quality is nice indeed. And Nvidia sometimes doesn't play along, but that is a small price to pay for an everyday peace of mind.

My both parents use linux and are happy with it. If you mostly use just the browser and reading e-mails, I don't see any better system even for someone who is non-technical.

We're 30+ years into trackpads on laptops and they're still terrible on Windows machines. Make it make sense.

Also don't forget calibrated screens, great speakers, long-life (you can use one for a 7-8 years without even trying), and durable keyboards which doesn't become smeared wear-fests which defaces itself within a single heavy development session.

I always run Linux (Debian primarily) on my desktops and servers with a zealot-ish dedication, but what Mac and macOS brings to the table as a portable machine is irreplaceable with anything else.

Even a top end ThinkPad with a well groomed Linux distribution can't come close, sorry.

Agree unfortunately. I hate apple, for the same reasons as everyone else, but I have both a MacBook and iPhone and can’t do much about it. It’s like politics a little, you can only choose the least bad, there is no good.

I have a Linux server, and use cloud Linux machines extensively, but at least the last time I checked, Linux desktop sucks. There are always memory management issues, doing a video call makes my fan sound like a jet taking off, not sleeping, put my laptop in my bag and it gets to hot to touch - that’s just off the top of my head, I’ve tried Linux laptops on multiple occasions and they suck.

This actually just happened to me... How did you fix it? I just finished proving that my issue isn't my peripherals or cords so it must be the GPU

I'm not sure the hardware is worth the price.

As for the OS, everytime I tried MacOS, I find rapidly major showstoppers. It's like people are just blind to them.

If I'd qualify each platform, I'd say Windows is a toy, Mac is a piece of art, Linux is a tool. I picked my category.

> Also the OS mostly “just works”, just last week my Linux laptop disabled NVIDIA GPU (and almost bricked itself?? Not sure, had to fix apt) during automated updates

I pulled the same update, and it was annoying but it came nowhere near bricking itself. The integrated graphics worked, it just disabled the Nvidia open-source driver for the GPU. Simply (re)installing it fixed it. Notably, just asking ChatGPT for the solution worked (after pasting the output of a few commands).

At work we can choose between Apple laptops or Thinkpads, I choose thinkpads, using Windows and WSL.

Previously either VMware Workstation or Virtual Box.

Also I am not speaking from a position of no experience, as some projects require being assigned Mac Books, that I gladly return after delivery.

Do regular people care about these things or is this a hn thing?

I find a trackpad (even a Mac one) is absolutely infuriating to use compared to a decent mouse.

Battery life/screens/magsafe I'm plugged into a dock 99% of the time so it's irrelevant, but when forced to occasionally, the ergonomics of looking down at a single small 1x in screen is just terrible if doing it for hours and also makes my back feel horrible.

Windows on laptops also just works, especially for high end ones. It’s the Linux on laptops that’s hit or miss.

Aluminium is not build quality. It makes lying stuff inside cheap. And feels horrible on skin contact.

The good ThinkPads with Magnesium feel much better (both for hand and lap) and are lighter. And the expensive and complicated build allows maintenance (replacing a keyboard is a bless on the X13). Lenovo is just stupid and also allows to purchase low quality screens, low quality frames and even a Windows. A thing that Apple never allows, you cannot purchase a bad configuration.

The MBAs at Apple figured out much earlier, that a rigid metal frame is cheap and gives the impression of quality.

Aside from that?

Customers are guilty, wanting a shiny and quick solution. And governments and companies by following ultra rigid and outright stupid purchasing guide (ISO craziness and “we can drop Windows, we invested another 300.000 in a Windows only Application).

Macs are for people who think they know how to computer but actually don't know anything at all.

>Because Mac laptops are lightyears ahead of any other hardware

Can Mac laptops run QubesOS?

This has changed recently

For example this dell is superb, has tandem oled with 200% scaling and runs linux (dhh runs this on onarchy)

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/laptop-computers/spd/xps14da...

> I then switched back to MacOS and am mostly happy hanging on to Sequoia… but I’m dreading the point at which (for some reason) Apple make it unavoidable to upgrade.

MacOS 27 is a lot less shit than 26, thankfully. I upgraded from 15 to 27 directly (on a M-series Mac).

IIRC in Linux you can run the windows version of office via wine or one of the successor/forks. Not sure if AD integration works nicely. And maybe it is just a group policy that somehow blocks it. But running the software should be possible these days.

I don’t like Apple’s services push either, nor do I like the ads that have worked their way into the App Store, News, and Maps.

That said, I recently bought a Windows laptop (which was wiped to run Linux day 1). Before I installed Linux I had one task I needed Windows for. To create a local account and not connect it to the internet, I had to lookup a keyboard shortcut to show a terminal, lookup a command to run the setup in a different mode for IT departments, then run through setup again to make my local account. Once in the OS, because I wasn’t on the network, 90% of the start menu was full of placeholder icons that needed the internet to download the actual icon… presumably a bunch of cloud services (ads). Then there were basics, like trackpad performance… it was unusable, I had to get a mouse to move around without pain. Once Linux was installed, the trackpad worked great, maybe even better than macOS, it’s close, just a matter of preference.

Compare that to macOS, which still lets you make a local account without jumping through hoops, runs fine without iCloud, and has all local apps that won’t leave you with a bunch of placeholders. The basic hardware, like the trackpad, also works well out of the box.

macOS and Apple aren’t perfect, but are still miles ahead of Windows, imo.

Linux isn’t perfect either. Initial hardware support was very hit and miss depending on the distro. Things I’d consider basic functionality required plugins that I had to hunt for. Other annoying out-of-the-box defaults required plugins + custom scripts to resolve. All of this can be very frustrating. Most people don’t want to tinker this much.

No system is perfect, it’s just a question of which tradeoffs a person is willing to make.

I won't disagree that MacOS has been getting worse, but Windows is even worse than you remember it. It's clearly a race to the bottom, but Windows 11 is full of ads, and you can't even search the Start menu for your installed programs anymore. MacOS hasn't gotten that bad yet, as frustrating as the new "Apps" menu is.

I switched my desktop to Ubuntu about a year ago, and while it's not 100% free of trouble, I still can't imagine running Windows 11 again. My MBP still runs MacOS and I haven't been pushed far enough to want to try installing a Linux distro on it.

When those unfortunate ones need my help. Or when teaching kids in school.

my work offers win or mac only.

Fanboys, including management, push macs down our throats and there's little you can do when apple fanboys are also decision makers, since they don't listen to reason.

I can't speak for OP but there can be many reasons. For example, I'm using a Macbook Air for development purposes, it's essentially dumb compilation/notarization machine. I don't use it for anything else because I find the user interface infuriating and can't get around it (which is weird because I used to be a Mac developer but IMHO the UI has gotten much less practical).